My daughter will read when she is ready

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Sophie Gurr aged seven reading to herself at home in Reading Berkshire November 22, 2010. Picture by Ben Gurr.Ben Gurr for The Times

Simon Van Booy

Last updated at 12:01AM, November 29 2010

Testing children on literacy at 6 is wrong, says an author, who won’t be teaching his daughter to read or write early

Sometimes at book signings, readers will ask if my daughter can write her name
yet. This question is usually awkward, because she can’t write her name, and
she can’t read — despite being 6 years old and living in a house that groans
under the weight of books. But the level of my daughter’s literacy is not
why this question is difficult. The problem is how strange it must seem when
I admit, as an author, that I don’t think it’s a good idea to encourage
children to read and write until they’re ready, which turns out to be much
later